Posted
by
michael
on Wednesday April 24, 2002 @01:58PM
from the how-not-to-handle-customer-complaints dept.

Cutriss writes "Steve Lynch of Hypothermia has been running a consumer awareness page following of an Internet pricing disagreement between Best Buy and over 2000 angry customers, where Best Buy refused to honor a web-only sale price of a GeForce4 Ti 4600 for $129.99, at a "Special pre-order price". The situation has escalated further - Rod Hill, Store Manager for Best Buy #513 in Tucker/Dekalb County, GA, had a customer arrested on Friday of last week, citing Fraud and Criminal Trespassing. Hill informed police that Abraham Cherian, an Indian American, was trying to rip off the store, the same store that had conceded to give another customer his video card as requested 10 days earlier. Best Buy is now apparently red-flagging inquiring troublemak^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hcustomers who attempt to obtain their purchased cards from Best Buy locations." FWIW, if the description of what happened is accurate, Best Buy has entered into a binding contract to sell the cards at the advertised price, and if they don't want to honor it, the people affected should take them to court (or contact their local Attorney General's office, which is what they appear to be doing). It's Best Buy's obligation to make sure their prices are accurate.

Best Buy may, at its own discretion, limit or cancel quantities purchased per person, per household or per order. These restrictions may include orders placed by the same BestBuy.com account, credit card, and also orders which use the same billing and/or shipping address. Notification will be sent to the e-mail and/or billing address provided should such change occur. We reserve the right to limit the quantities sold, including the right to limit or prohibit sales to dealers.

Prices and availability are subject to change without notice. Errors will be corrected where discovered, and Best Buy reserves the right to revoke any stated offer and to correct any errors, inaccuracies or omissions including after an order has been submitted and whether or not the order has been confirmed and your credit card charged. If your credit card has already been charged for the purchase and your order is cancelled, BestBuy.com will issue a credit to your credit card account in the amount of the charge. Individual bank policies will dictate when this amount is credited to your account.

While Best Buy takes steps to ensure the accuracy and completeness of product and third-party services provided, please refer to the originator of information for details, for example the manufacturer for complete product details.

They seem to do this intentionally. This isn't the first time Best Buy has misguided customers on its website. They purposely mark a product with the wrong price to get everyone's pre-order dollars and then don't ship it and call it a "typo". They then proceed to either refund you or give you a "discounted price" for their "mistake" which is no where near the original price advertised on their website.

It is some kind of cheap ploy to get people to use their website for all of their purchases. This is all to common with e-tailers these days. I for one sincerely hope that Steve and Hypothermia take Best Buy to the cleaners over this one.

...which means the store is not bound to honour it. There's no contract, implicit or otherwise until you take it to the till and make them an offer. They can refuse that offer even if the price is correct (not very good business sense though). Most places honour the first incorrect price but change the stickers asap.

IWAAL (I was almost a lawyer) but only in the UK, so the US common law may have diverged.

If you read further down on the page you will read this is a possible instance of descrimination

I have attempted to call Mr. Hill all morning to ask what criteria must be met to actually have the original price honored. Do you have to be Male? Female? Black? White? Does it matter that the first person to get the correct price at this very same store was a White Male, and the person turned away today happened to be dark skinned of Indian Nationality?? Well, we won't know, because if you go into the store to ask...you will be ARRESTED.

I Remember reading about this in 'Maximum PC' a month or two ago; Best Buy's stand then was that it was an error/typo and not a legally binding contract -- they said that they would not honor the price... seems that some of the stores have been honoring the price, unbeknownst to corporate management...

I suggest you re-read the hypothermia web page. The wording of the original Best Buy offer on the Best Buy web site made it very clear that this was an intentional pricing sale, not a typo.

In case you missed it, here is the quote from hypothermia about the original web offer:

Here's a strange one... we found an Advertisement at BestBuy.com yesterday that proclaimed "VisionTek GeForce4 Ti4600 for Special Pre-Order Price of $129.00..the savings is a $200.00 Value".
Normally a "typo" or mistake would be something to the effect of a misplaced decimal point or an accidental wrong price. It usually doesn't consist of adding terms like Special Pre-Order Price and savings is a $200.00 Value, ( since it sounds reasonable $129.00 + $200.00 savings for a card announced that day with no real set price yet ) all over the advertisement. So we did the right thing and CALLED. BestBuy.com confirmed the price of $129.00 twice, at which time they gave us the $200.00 value / saving quotes.

I was going to post exactly the same thing. Congratulations on being quicker to the draw. I was also going to add that there's one problem with that. At least one of the buyers called and confirmed twice that the offer and prices listed were valid. Any legal experts out there know how this will change things?

I guess I'm curious what law this is that says a store has to sell something if it's mispriced.

Wouldn't that vary from one state to the next?

I was able to find Michigan's Item Pricing Act. [state.mi.us] Which seems somewhat pertinent as the slashdot editors are from Michigan, if I recall correctly.

The language of this law is really quite clear. It's illegal to purposefully misadvertise a product with the intent to deceive the consumer. It also says that the retailer cannot advertise one price, and then charge another.

But if the price was not correct on the website, and Best Buy informed the buyers of this and gave them the option to cancel their order. i.e. they didn't go back and change the price as charged to their credit cards... then there really is no lawful violation, is there?

What we're talking about here is entirely a measure of store goodwill. That is, you've pointed out a price mistake, and the question is whether the store is going to honor it or not. If it had been a brick and mortar store, chances are yes. Why? Because they could immediately go take down the sign which is mistakenly advertising the product.

But this is a little bit different, because these people didn't stumble upon the price and point it out. Someone stumbled upon it, and then went out and advertised to everyone "Hey! Best Buy has mispriced something on their website... go grab it!"

Maybe someone else can read that law and see where this would be a clear violation. Or is the law signifigantly different in other states?

"SPECIAL PRE-ORDER! 129.99 $200 SAVINGS!!" is most obviously not a typo.

In addition, if it's a typo, then you don't honor it. You don't honor it for some people, turn other people away, and have other people arrested for trying to get what they ordered at the price they ordered it at.

I used to work at Incredible Universe, an electronics store where the television department alone was roughly the size of a Best Buy. All the ones that made money were bought out by Fry's, and I was at one of the ones that made money. The way it was always explained to me was that we actually weren't responsible for the physical price tags on the items on the self; people could switch those, alter those, and so forth. We also weren't responsible for misprints or out-of-stocks on the newspaper ads; the ads are run for the whole country, and so long as one of the stores has the item in stock, it's a legal ad and not bait-and-switch. Misprints, of course, are the responsibility of the printer.

So people'd buy an item, take it to the register, and the clerk'd scan the UPC. We were responsible for the price the item scans at the register, and if it was wrong, tough titty, we'd have to sell it anyway. We'd change the price in the system pretty damned fast, but we'd at least have to sell it to that guy.

Having an awesome price on some product and having 2 per store. In my area, local retailers won't even match Best Buy prices because they know this trick and know Best Buy doesn't have them in stock. Your best bet is to not make your purchases there.

First off, Best Buy labeled the $129 price as being $200 off of the original price which seemed reasonable. They also DID NOT fix the pricing error before credit cards were charged. Several of my friends that got in on this had their cards charged. Not just authorized, but charged. It wasn't until about a week and a half went by that they got their money back and an email from Best Buy.

On the linked page you'll see the "saga" that Steve has gone through with the BBB. They are nothing but an organization that collects large "dues" from corporations and does nothing about complaints. The BBB contact that Steve spoke with outright lied about people getting the cards at $129 even AFTER being confronted with undeniable evidence! Its been a real eyeopener for a lot of people.

Actually, the $30 coupon originated from Cheetah Mail, an online direct marketing company. So, now they sold your information to a marketing company as well.

The $30 "gift-certificate" (actually a "coupon") also had a few extra strings attached.

What a nice way to "make up for their screw-up."

Also, if you used it, then you forfeit your ability to enter into any class-action lawsuit, or complain in any way after that, or receive any part of a settlement or compromise that could happen at a later date.

I was one of the people that got in on this "deal". I went to the best buy site the day GF4's went on sale and noticed they had the GF4 TI-4600 for a SPECIAL pre-order price of $129.99. I was like, woah, too good to pass up, so i ordered one. Then later in the day, it no longer said SPECIAL and just said pre-order and the price was $399. This makes me think that this was NOT a price mistake, they knew what they were doing.

Very shady practices....and what really gets me, is that people HAVE been getting them for $129. How can they give some people the special pre-order price, but not to others?

At this point, I would call the local friendly legal professional. I bet he or she would be very happy to pursue a wrongful detention civil suit against Best Buy and its manager. Lawyers love this sort of case, especially when it's a little guy clearly in the right versus a big retailer. You get the chance to teach BB a lesson, see the manager get his ass fired, and you could get a nice little chunk of change for your trouble.

Here's a strange one... we found an Advertisement at BestBuy.com yesterday that proclaimed "VisionTek GeForce4 Ti4600 for Special Pre-Order Price of $129.00..the savings is a $200.00 Value". Normally a "typo" or mistake would be something to the effect of a misplaced decimal point or an accidental wrong price. It usually doesn't consist of adding terms like Special Pre-Order Price and savings is a $200.00 Value, ( since it sounds reasonable $129.00 + $200.00 savings for a card announced that day with no real set price yet ) all over the advertisement. So we did the right thing and CALLED. BestBuy.com confirmed the price of $129.00 twice, at which time they gave us the $200.00 value / saving quotes. After a whole day of ordering, they reneged on the deal and cancelled all orders. The money has yet to be refunded. I have made a sign-up page for all of you that placed orders with Best Buy so that we may get as many people taken care of as possible. I have been in contact with them all day....

The evidence these folks have collected (scanned receipts, etc.) appears to be pretty damning for Best Buy. It will be interesting to see how badly Best Buy gets thrashed in court or if they just settle up and offer the cards at the price they advertised.

it's called "bait and switch", and it's no different that a gas station with sign's that say $.59/gal, and then tell you it's $1.59 when you're done. They can't force you to pay the higher price, and they have to change the advertised price when notified of the mistake.

A lot of people didn't read the posts. Here's the part you didn't read:
we found an Advertisement at BestBuy.com yesterday that proclaimed "VisionTek GeForce4 Ti4600 for Special Pre-Order Price of $129.00..the savings is a $200.00 Value". Normally a "typo" or mistake would be something to the effect of a misplaced decimal point or an accidental wrong price. It usually doesn't consist of adding terms like Special Pre-Order Price and savings is a $200.00 Value, ( since it sounds reasonable $129.00 + $200.00 savings for a card announced that day with no real set price yet ) all over the advertisement. So we did the right thing and CALLED. BestBuy.com confirmed the price of $129.00 twice, at which time they gave us the $200.00 value / saving quotes.
That sound like a typo to you?

I have had problems with that store as well. That manager, in fact. They must be desparate for ANYONE to work there as a manager to keep that bozo.

I was also accused of attempting to defraud them when I tried to return som RAM that wouldn't work in an IBM Aptiva. (Picky box, Crucial ram worked fine). He told me they didn't even sell the brand I was returning. I had purchased it less than 30 minutes earlier! When I tried to get him to look in the locked case where the ram is so he could SEE THE SAME BRAND, he ordered me out of the store.

I am no longer a customer. I will not EVER be customer again. I go out of my way to tell anyone who will listen to my story just how crappy of a store Best Buy, and the Tucker store in particular is.

I vote for quality business with my money. Best Buy would eventually go out of business if it were not for the hourdes of people willing to tolerate crap for service where they shop.

One would think that Best Buy has a decent legal team, but if it's anything like the team of people in their stores...

A LOT of companies have disclaimers and things like that that are illegal (and I don't know if this one is or not) but nobody finds that out unless someone challenges it. Thus they save paying out tons of money to people that decide not to try to sue because of the stated policy.

A few years back, buy.com advertised a 19" monitor for sale at a price of $169 (list at the time was in the mid $400s). I saw the ad and ordered a monitor, thinking it was a great deal.

Well, word aparrently got out and buy.com got flooded with orders for the monitor. Buy.com sent out a couple e-mails explaining the typo. They decided the only fair way to award their stock of monitors, was by taking a random pick of all purchasers. I did not end up with a monitor. Buy.com apologised profusely, and for the most part was very responsible in the matter. It was not like the bait and switch that BBY is known to do in the past (don't think for a second that this is the first time they've tried to pull this trick).

I was not really upset over the matter. I was not really looking for a monitor at the time, but the big size and low price appealed to me. Granted, I would not probably order from buy.com ever again, but I was not furious. It's not as if I was charged for a product I did not recieve.

Fast foreward a year and a half. I recieved a letter from a law firm that was handling a class action lawsuit against buy.com in the monitor mishap. The judge in the case found that buy.com was responsible for their typo and awarded the suit a large settlement. Well, after legal feeds were subtracted, each customer in the suit gained somewhere around $300. IANAL, but wouldn't this set some kind of legal presecent to force Best Buy to honor their online price, typo or not?

It looks like somebody might have hit the jackpot. Especially the guy who got arrested. INAL, but lying to the police to get somebody arrested doesn't sound good. All that damage to his reputation, emotional distress, etc.. Talk to some attorneys--fast--and before saying another word to anyone else.

And everyone, please help prevent this sort of thing happening again by reporting your experience to the on-line rating services. Best Buy, if that's the right company has an 8.2 out of 10 rating at BizRate.COM. 2,000 angry customers can fix that. Although at Reseller Ratings they're already at 1.54 out of 10. Not much fixing needed there. For more info, take a look at:

Excuse me for posting as an AC. but I already modded some and do not want those points to be wasted.

Here is the follow-up on the Bets Buy comparative shopping story. Mr. Kahlow sued and lost. [bloomu.edu] Not sure if he appealed the verdict or not. And anyone knows if Best Buy's policy regarding comparative shooping has been changed or not?

I've seen the bait and switch there before - I had an ad in my hand which showed a particular product at a large discount. Guess what - no product... not even a spot on the shelf for it... the next day after the 1 day sale the product in question was on the shelf without a discount. When I asked about it I was told "We just had a delivery". However they declined to show me the paperwork showing they weren't in stock the previous day.

Rather than reply to each individual post where someone has made a grave error because they're not aware of the facts, I'm putting them in one post for easy reference:

Best Buy advertised the VisionTek Xtasy GeForce4 Ti4600 for preorder at the price of $129.99 (plus applicable sales tax) on their website (bestbuy.com) on Wednesday, February 6, 2002.

Over 2,000 customers placed orders for the card at this special price.

These customers were greeted with confirmation web pages, confirmation e-mail messages, issued order numbers, and some even received backorder confirmation e-mail messages (some even received multiple backorder confirmations).

Within hours, Best Buy pulled the offer, and "corrected" what they later called a "pricing error."

Cancellation e-mails were sent out, and cited a "systems error" for the mistake.

Best Buy issued a press released (only published at news.com) which blamed "human error" for the mistake.

Customers who called Best Buy to inquire about the order cancellation were told that VisionTek would not allow Best Buy to sell the cards at the originally agreed-upon price (Best Buy was falsely accusing VisionTek of illegal price-fixing tactics).

Best Buy does have a disclaimer on their web site in the form of their Terms of Service Agreement.

Best Buy has actually changed their Terms of Service since this entire fiasco began.

Best Buy's Terms of Service do not supercede federal, state, and local consumer protection laws, which (in many cases) specifically outlaw this type of activity.

Best Buy's Terms of Service exist for the sole purpose of tricking customers into surrendering their consumer rights. The way consumer law is written, customers must exercise their rights; if they surrender them, the company in question is not required to adhere to these laws.

"E-tailers" are subject to the same rules, regulations, and laws that apply to their brick-and-mortar cousins. (See the FTC's Dot Com Disclosures [ftc.gov])

Best Buy has stated that absolutely no one will be receiving the card at the previously agreed-upon price, yet well over 140 customers have already done so.

Best Buy is ignoring its customers at this point. E-mails go unanswered, and phone calls are greeted with a promise to escalate the call, but the customer must wait for someone to contact them; this, of course, never happens.

At least one person has already taken this to Small Claims Court. He had his first hearing a couple of weeks ago, but Best Buy requested a continuance, which was granted.

A class action lawsuit is still an option, and one that may be used.

There are more facts that are pertinent, but these are the most commonly misunderstood or ignored pieces of information.

According to GA law, and advertised price IS a binding contract because failure to sell an item at that price is false advertisement. It doesn't matter if the price is a misprint or some other form of mistake. The customer sees the price and decides to purchase the item. The damage is doneby then; nothing can take it away. Failure to require the merchant to honor an advertised price (mistake or not) would open up a massive loophole. Merchants could then eggs at $0.12 a dozen and then ring them up at the register as say $1.20. "It was just a misprint."

and let them know what you think of them. Tell them you read it on/. Tell them you'll never buy from them ever again!

Years ago, I sent 10 letters to every address I could find at Intuit to complain about their crappy software and customer service, 6 months later I received a handwritten letter of apology and a free copy of the software. I bet many people got their ass whipped for not giving a shit before it got the the Prez of Customer Service...

Does anybody remember the uproar that occurred a few years ago with buy.com? They "accidentally" posted an incorrect price for 21" monitors. They refused to honor the price and were taken to court. They had to pay everyone's money back plus $20 - 50 a piece. Although I got money out of the deal, I was pretty pissed.

A couple of years ago a similar thing happned at United Airlines.Basically, a technical glitch in the United Airlines internet reservation system is reported to have allowed 120 customers to obtain round-trip tickets between Chicago and Bombay for between USD$139 and USD$179. The tickets would usually have cost more than USD$999.After bitching about it for a while, United gave in to customer demands. That's what I call a good fair company!

>
I haven't seen anyone reply to this in quite this way, but that is NOT what the TOS was at the time this whole thing started. They were not that specific as to take it all the way to "even if your credit card has been charged". That was not in the TOS prior to this fiasco. That sentence in the original TOS stopped at "innacuracies or ommissions including after an order has been submitted." That is where it stopped. None of the rest of that paragraph was in the original TOS.
Just so you know.
Thanks.
Oz

However, there are some especially sensitive jobs for which merely an ARREST is flagged. The fact of being arrested generally doesn't disqualify one for such jobs, but if you fail to reveal it when asked, that's lying, perjury, and in some cases (applying for government jobs involving security and secrecy) possibly even a felony. When you do put down "YES" then you will be asked to explain the circumstances. While this is certainly not something that would be a problem, the fact of having to do this, possibly the rest of your life, can be a hindrance. And in some cases you can be improperly discriminated against if the employer finds it more convenient to hire someone slightly less qualified than you just because they won't have to check and validate the arrest record (if they have to ask for ARREST instead of CONVICTION for highly sensitive jobs, they surely have to followup and verify). Fortunately most jobs don't fall into these categories.

Mr Cherian should have a lawyer pursue an action to have his arrest expunged so he can then legally say "NO" in the few cases an arrest might be asked about... and then file suit naming the Best Buy store, the Best Buy company, and the store manager Rod Hill, to cover all legal expenses to set things straight. There is even the possibility of pursuing criminal action against the store manager for false arrest (the lawyer needs to advise on that).

In the mean time, be sure to do searches on the bestbuy.com web site for terms like "arrest", "ripoff", "rod hill", "consumer terrorism", etc. They do log these things.

I've also had my problems with Best Buy, and I have decided never to do business with them again. Luckily, my problem was small, but the way it was handled removed any confidence I have that Best Buy can handle legitimate customer service issues.

I bought a simple and cheap ($19.95) home layout CAD program. My computer was listed as meeting the requirements of the program. The program would not run on my computer. I attempted to exchange the program for a different (and more expensive, with me paying the difference) program. The Best Buy employees told me that software can only be exchanged for a new copy of the same program. I explained again that the program was defective (either it was actually defective, or the system requirements on the packaging were defective) and that it would not work on my computer.

To make a long story shorter, I never received a satisfactory solution. I asked to talk to the manager, but there was "no manager in the store", I wrote to customer service, but twice received canned replies that didn't address the problem. I finally gave up because the amount was so small.

The bottom line: I lost $20, Best Buy lost a lot more. Since my problems with them I've bought thousands of dollars worth of merchandise that Best Buys sells. They didn't even enter into consideration as a vendor. I won't get burnt twice by them.

This is actually all to common--I used to work at a best buy where over half of the floor staff was fired because they had been replacing prod in boxes with dummy wieghts or whatever and re sealing boxes/cd cases (cds were often replaced with aol cds...) with the sealing machine...

I jumped on it, and got one. After I ordered, the price was put back up to 229.00. Luckily, the good people at Insight held up their end of it, and shipped the board. These people will be getting a LOT more business from me. This is the kind of customer service that really shows they value me, even when I get the better of them. Goodbye Best Buy, Hello Insight!